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In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life

296 points · 107 comments · danso

  1. ____tom____ · · focus · HN ↗
    They mention this event has only happened handful of times.

    This seems unsupported. More likely is it's happened a large number of times, but has only established a lineage a handful of times.

    1. fyltr · · focus · HN ↗
      principle of sparcity. for mutations, we assume it only happened once considering how highly unlikely it is to happen. it is what helps us determine how species are related. if notable differences are detected, like in that case or for example in the case of wings (bird wings vs bat wings), we do an exception.
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